


nothing is beautiful; everything hurts

by nebula_vs_supernova



Series: Fandom Oneshots and Drabbles and Everything in Between [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Character Study, Complete, Internal Monologue, POV Bucky Barnes, POV First Person, slowly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 03:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11523408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebula_vs_supernova/pseuds/nebula_vs_supernova
Summary: Life is like a dance, but I forgot the steps.





	nothing is beautiful; everything hurts

**Author's Note:**

> _Why do I write Bucky Barnes in first person?! I hate first person!_
> 
>  
> 
> This is based on that tag "everything is beautiful and nothing hurts" or whatever it is. Yeah, this is the exact opposite of that.

You'd think it'd all come back at once, but it doesn't. It starts slow. Things, places, _people_ you shouldn't know look familiar, and the name's at the tip of your tongue, but you can't remember. It's like a dance you _know_ you've done a thousand times, but someone changed the tempo, and now you can't keep up.

Then, there's something solid. For me, a line that lived on my lips uttered by the same voice that had laughed whenever I said it. But I didn't know - I couldn't remember whose voice it was. I remembered hot summers spent on the floor of a Brooklyn apartment, cold winters tucked in next to each other and complaining about space, nights spent dancing with pretty women and ending with that voice jealously talking about the dames, but _whose voice was it?_

I knew the face. I knew the mark. From there, the name wasn't so hard. _Steven_ _Grant Rogers._ Nothing about the name sparked some great flood of memories that I could cling to as _mine._ It was a step though. After the face, the name, I needed - _wanted_ \- to understand why he was important.

I found the name in the museum, and I found mine too. I found a history that was supposed to be mine, but it may as well been a textbook. Who I was related to, my recruitment to the military, my _death;_ none of that mattered to me - none of it told me who I was.

A part of me wanted to return to Stevie ( _Steven sounds too fucking formal_ ) and ask him how the hell he knew me, who he was to me that made him so damn special. I didn't seek him out.

I remembered little things. His mother was a nurse, Sarah, and she died when he was pretty young - tuberculosis. As a kid he was always sick, and he got into fights with bullies even though they could snap him like a twig. He shoved old papers in his shoes because Stevie was short as hell, and the devil himself could come kill Steve before he let himself get picked on. I used to drag him on double dates because Stevie was awkward around girls, but no matter how gentlemanly and kind Steve was, the dames only saw a scrawny boy.

I remembered all that down to the minute details. I didn't know why Steve was important though. We were friends - that much was easy to see. Why was it, though, that after years of having my brain wiped and rewritten, all he had to do was talk to me, to almost die because _Stevie's a dumbass,_ and suddenly, my body's my own. I'm back to being James Buchanan Barnes, the smooth-talking gentleman who got drafted into World War II and fell from a train, but at the same time, I'm the Winter Soldier, the Russian assassin and weapon against everything that James Barnes ever loved.

Predictably, there's a bit of an overlap conflict there.

If I understood though, if I knew _why_ Stevie was so damn important, maybe that conflict wouldn't be there. Maybe then, I'd understand my purpose.

 

**

A year. One year, twelve months, fifty two weeks. That's exactly how long it took for me to catch up to the song and dance. Maybe I didn't remember everything, but I remembered the important part.

Stevie and I were _friends_ \- if you really wanted to call it that. That punk liked to fight bullies, but he was weak and sick and a slight breeze could've blown him halfway across the Atlantic. _I_ was the idiot that dragged the bully off Stevie. I'd had this awful need to protect the kid because I loved Steve like he was everything - which isn't far off since he's all I had.

Still, Stevie didn't need me to protect him anymore. Now, he was Captain _freaking_ America. He didn't need Bucky Barnes: War Criminal mothering him.

_Steve's a big boy. He can take care of himself._

That's how I rationalized it at least. Sure, I'd watch the news and see stories about Stevie jumping out of planes ( _use_ _a_ _goddamn_ _parachute, Stevie!_ ) and getting shot at ( _you were born in 1918. You're allowed to retire,_ _damnit_ _!_ ).

The worst was Sokovia though. I watched everything they played on TV about it with my heart in my throat and my metal fingers shattering whatever I happened to be holding. _If Stevie died..._

What? What would I do if Stevie died? He wasn't _my_ Steve anymore. _I_ didn't have to protect him, so why the fuck was I on the edge of my seat, ready to _run_ to Sokovia? He wasn't my job, hadn't been for a long time.

So why did I bother?

I figured that out much later.

**

Steve found me in my apartment in Bucharest, and like an idiot, he didn't want to just leave me to my own devices. Somewhere along the line, I remembered why I protected the punk so often - even when he didn't need it.

I loved Stevie like everything, and even though he didn't look like a fragile piece of china, he still needed someone to watch his back. I guess, like me, Stevie never really got used to not having someone at his side to remind him that he wasn't invincible, that he was _mortal, breakable_ , and _human._

Guess that means I'll just have to learn to keep up, and the first step to that is knowing I can trust my own brain.


End file.
